Which Ancient Greek Inventions Changed the World?

A precursor to the compass, the astrolabe was crucial in helping the Greeks navigate the seas and build their huge trade network.

This revolutionary discovery allowed the ancient Greeks to tell time even when the sun was not out, by having a specific amount of water in a water clock that spilled out and when the water was all out, a certain amount of time had passed, based on the size of the water clock.

An extremely flammable fire, it was extremely hard to extinguish and therefore was good for sieging/destroying/sacking cities.

Discovered by Archimedes, the lever and pulley lift things and in (somewhat) use today.

This huge construction machine allows use move big things. We can clear out huge bars of iron, we can move large tree trunks, etc.

A water raising device, that when turned could move water up/down.

A ballistic device that can launch projectiles long distances, or high distances, often used in sieges.

The Greek alphabet influenced many other cultures and many of our words today have Greek roots. The Greek alphabet evolved into the Roman one, which eventually, became the one we use today, the English alphabet.

This famous equation, c²=a²+b², was created by the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who it is named for, and is used to find the length of a hypotenuse.

A branch of mathematics that substitutes values with variables, algebra is used to solve for an unknown.

Like with the circumference of Earth which was found by Eratostenes, Aristarchus found that Earth revolved around its axis and this, too technically proved that the Earth was round.

This branch of mathematics studies the relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles.

This made is possible to study solar eclipses and know why they happened.

This is very important because it helped prove that the sun was not a god, and instead was a star.

This ratio, 1.618, was used to make the Parthenon's proportions perfect. It can be found in a lot of places in nature, such as the nautilus shell, who segments increase by 1.618.

This ratio is of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It is essential in finding a circle's area(pi*r²) and a circle's diameter (2*pi*r).

This was a very important step forward in mathematics, as square roots are used in many mathematical functions today, such as linear equations.